NEWS
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra to have encore presentation of Violins of Hope"
Cleveland Jewish News has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra:
The Cleveland Orchestra will have a special performance for the general public of the Violins of Hope education concert at the Milton and Tamar Maltz Preforming Arts Center at The Temple-Tifereth Israel’s Case Western Location at noon March 8.
The instruments at the Violins of Hope concert survived the Holocaust and were collected and restored by Amnon Weinstein; and these concerts intend to inform, educate, and inspire listeners. Directed by Donald Carrier and conducted by Brett Mitchell, this performance is accompanying other encore presentations for students.
The performances will feature violinist Peter Otto, the orchestra's first associate concertmaster, and the Charles Bernard, the assistant principal cellist.
Afterward, the concert will be available via ideastream.org for educators.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra & Chorus Perform at Severance Hall"
Brett Mitchell conducts the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in performance at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
CoolCleveland has published a brief preview of the second subscription concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season on Sunday, February 19:
This week, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra will perform at Severance Hall with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus. Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor/COYO music director Brett Mitchell will lead the young musicians in a program that includes Sea-Blue Circuitry, a new piece by American composer Mason Bates, Claude Debussy’s Nocturnes and Francis Poulenc’s Gloria. Lisa Wong directs the chorus, and soprano Marian Vogel solos.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra to Host a Special Violins of Hope Encore Presentation and Concert"
Brett Mitchell and The Cleveland Orchestra will reprise their popular "Violins of Hope" education program next month. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Cleveland Scene has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming education programs with The Cleveland Orchestra:
For the past two decades, Amnon Weinstein has restored violins that survived the Holocaust. In 2015, seven local cultural arts organizations worked together to bring the instruments to Cleveland with an array plays, concerts, lectures, exhibitions, films and other public events.
A Violins of Hope exhibition featuring the violins and their individual stories at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage resulted from the community-wide collaboration, and the orchestra played the instruments at a special concert.
The Cleveland Orchestra today announced it will revisit the collaboration with a series of special programs....
Violins of Hope Education Concerts will take place from March 8 to 10 at the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at The Temple-Tifereth Israel on the campus of Case Western Reserve University.
Conducted by The Cleveland Orchestra’s Associate Conductor, Brett Mitchell, the concerts will feature Cleveland Orchestra First Associate Concertmaster Peter Otto and Assistant Principal Cellist Charles Bernard. The program includes the following: Bloch’s "Simchas Torah" [Rejoicing] from Baal Shem; Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, Opus 47; Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, Opus 34; and John Williams’s Main Theme from Schindler's List.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra presents encores of Violins Of Hope education concerts"
Cleveland Patch has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming series of concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra:
Following the success of the 2015 Violins of Hope Education Concerts performed by The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall for nearly 10,000 students, thousands more will enjoy encore presentations of the Violins of Hope Education Concert March 8-10, performed this time at the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at the Temple-Tifereth Israel on the campus of Case Western Reserve University....
These concerts are based on the original December 2015 Violins of Hope Education Concerts, a collaboration between The Cleveland Orchestra and the Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House Master of Fine Arts Program in Acting. In these Cleveland Orchestra Education Concerts, music and drama were combined to express the themes of spirit, resistance, resilience, and hope. This special program created a powerful lens through which the audience was able to view the important role of music in Jewish life, before, during, and after the Holocaust.
Conducted by The Cleveland Orchestra’s Associate Conductor, Brett Mitchell, the March 2017 concerts will feature Cleveland Orchestra First Associate Concertmaster Peter Otto and Assistant Principal Cellist Charles Bernard. The program includes Bloch’s Simchas Torah [Rejoicing] from Baal Shem; Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, Opus 47; Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, Opus 34; and John Williams’s [Main Theme] from Schindler's List for Violin and Orchestra....
ideastream, the region’s multiple media public service organization that includes WVIZ/PBS, 90.3 WCPN, and WCLV 104.9, will record the March Violins of Hope Education Concert. The concert will be available via ideastream.org for permanent educational use by teachers, paired with Facing History and Ourselves’ Holocaust curriculum.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra releases 2017 Blossom Calendar"
Brett Mitchell will preside over a trio of performances to conclude The Cleveland Orchestra's 2017 Blossom Music Festival. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
ClevelandClassical has published a story about about The Cleveland Orchestra's newly announced 2017 Blossom Music Festival season, featuring a trio of performances over Labor Day weekend under the baton of Brett Mitchell in his final performances as the orchestra's associate conductor:
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2017 Blossom Music Festival calendar, which features 21 concerts between the Fourth of July and Labor Day. Special tributes will include...a screening of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, shown in HD with the score by John Williams performed live on the last three nights of the season.
Friday, September 1, 2017, at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, September 2, 2017, at 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, September 3, 2017, at 8:30 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Brett Mitchell, conductor
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial shown in HD on the big screen with the score performed live by The Cleveland Orchestra.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Audio: Brett Mitchell previews upcoming Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra concert
Brett Mitchell leads the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in performance at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Brett Mitchell spoke with WCLV's Bill O'Connell about the next concert in the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season, presented on Sunday, February 19 at Severance Hall:
In its annual collaboration with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra opens this concert with a new piece by American composer Mason Bates [Sea-Blue Circuitry]. The remainder of the program features two French works—lush and beautiful—with the women of chorus singing in Claude Debussy's Nocturnes and the full chorus (and soprano soloist) joining in for Francis Poulenc's passionate and effervescent Gloria.
To hear this interview, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra pulls back the curtain on a diverse 2017 Blossom Festival season"
Brett Mitchell will preside over a trio of performances to conclude The Cleveland Orchestra's 2017 Blossom Music Festival. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a story about about The Cleveland Orchestra's newly announced 2017 Blossom Music Festival season, featuring a trio of performances over Labor Day weekend under the baton of Brett Mitchell in his final performances as the orchestra's associate conductor:
The program likely to attract the biggest audience is the season finale: John Williams' "E.T.," in a live performance in time with the film. Wise to the popularity of film concerts, the orchestra has scheduled three performances of "E.T.," in an effort to prevent overcrowding.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "Something for everyone at Blossom Music Festival"
Brett Mitchell will preside over a trio of performances to conclude The Cleveland Orchestra's 2017 Blossom Music Festival. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Akron Beacon Journal has published a story about The Cleveland Orchestra's newly announced 2017 Blossom Music Festival season, featuring a trio of season-concluding performances over Labor Day weekend under the baton of Brett Mitchell in his final performances as the orchestra's associate conductor::
Sept. 1-3, 8:30 p.m. — E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, film shown in HD on big screens with John Williams’ score performed live. The Cleveland Orchestra; Brett Mitchell, conductor. Fireworks, weather permitting.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: Brett Mitchell and the Colorado Symphony welcome composer Kevin Puts
Kevin Puts will attend the second night of the Colorado Symphony's performance of Symphony No. 2 under the baton of Music Director Designate Brett Mitchell. (Photo by David White)
Westword (Denver) has published an interview with composer Kevin Puts in advance of the Colorado Symphony's performances of his Second Symphony this weekend under the baton of Music Director Designate Brett Mitchell:
What happens when you juxtapose Ludwig Van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, an orchestral masterpiece whose sublime grandeur seems impossible to rival, with contemporary composer Kevin Puts's much gentler (albeit not that gentle) Symphony No. 2, a modern orchestral work written in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks?
Audiences will find out tonight, January 27, and tomorrow, January 28, when the Colorado Symphony performs both, conducted by Music Director Designate Brett Mitchell....
[Kevin Puts:] "The orchestral world tends to be very backward-looking. The thing is, [Colorado Symphony Music Director Designate] Brett Mitchell, who I've known for quite some time, he and I love works of the past. We'll sit there, talking and playing them on the piano for each other for hours. I'm most interested in what is possible today, what can be said today, the music that hasn't been written yet or that is being written right now. Brett is a real advocate for new music. It's not something he just thinks he should do. He really believes it."
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra planning brief but high-impact tour of the Midwest"
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and Indiana University orchestras in Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration next week in Bloomington. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Plain Dealer has published a preview of The Cleveland Orchestra's upcoming Midwest tour, during which "associate conductor Brett Mitchell will preside over perhaps the most valuable offerings, two side-by-side rehearsals" of Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration with the Indiana University orchestras. To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "For 2017 Grant Park Music Festival, music and finances join in sunny harmony"
Brett Mitchell will make his debut with the Grant Park Orchestra in July 2017 with a program of Kenji Bunch, Saint-Saëns, and Copland.
The Chicago Tribune has published a preview of the Grant Park Music Festival's 2017 season, including details about Brett Mitchell's debut with the Grant Park Orchestra:
Classical buffs have long appreciated Grant Park as a place to discover conductors who are creating buzz in the outside music world but, for one reason or another, have not been heard in Chicago. Three such podium debuts are highly anticipated this summer — those of Fawzi Haimor, Simone Young and Brett Mitchell....
Mitchell, associate conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and music director of its youth orchestra, will become the fourth music director of the Colorado Symphony beginning this fall. He will make his Grant Park bow July 19 with a program of Copland, Bunch and Saint-Saëns.
To read the complete article, please click here. To read an additional article in Chicago Classical Review, please click here.
Preview: "Brett Mitchell’s big CSO moment"
Brett Mitchell begins a four-year tenure as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in 2017.
The Denver Post has published a list of "10 Denver arts and culture events to look forward to in 2017," which includes Brett Mitchell's inaugural concert as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony on Saturday, September 9:
The Colorado Symphony Orchestra welcomes its new music director, Brett Mitchell, with a showy kickoff, a season-starting concert featuring opera superstar Renée Fleming as the special guest. All eyes, and ears, will be on Mitchell, who at just 37, was hired to replace Andrew Litton this year, becoming one of the youngest maestros to lead a major orchestra.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra releases MLK Celebration Concert program and free ticket information"
Brett Mitchell will lead the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in a special performance commemorating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, January 16. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a preview of The Cleveland Orchestra's 2017 MLK celebrations:
In continued celebration of MLK, the orchestra also will hold a free open house from noon to 5 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 16. Look and listen for performances by...the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, with conductor Brett Mitchell.
To read the complete preview, please click here. To read an additional preview in Cleveland Scene, please click here.
Audio: "Spend the holidays with The Cleveland Orchestra"
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and Choruses in their 2016 Christmas Concerts. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
CLEVELAND — Brett Mitchell spoke with WCLV Classical 104.9's Bill O'Connell about The Cleveland Orchestra's 2016 Christmas Concerts, presented from December 10 through 18 at Severance Hall. To hear this interview, please click here.
Audio: Brett Mitchell discusses "It's a Wonderful Life" with The Cleveland Orchestra
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Dmitri Tiomkin's score for ‘It's a Wonderful Life’ at Severance Hall on December 8 and 9 as part of its 2016 holiday festival.
Brett Mitchell spoke with WCLV Classical 104.9's Bill O'Connell about his performances with The Cleveland Orchestra of Dmitri Tiomkin's score for It's a Wonderful Life on December 8 and 9 at Severance Hall. To hear this interview, please click here.
Preview: "The Cleveland Orchestra and local choruses roll out the carols at Severance Hall"
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra's 2016 holiday festival at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Cool Cleveland has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming holiday concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra:
For much of this month, Severance Hall will be filled with the strains of carols as the Cleveland Orchestra brings back its annual holiday concerts for 10 performances.
Associate conductor Brett Mitchell conducts a stage full of mighty musical firepower, including the Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and, on different nights, the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus Chamber Ensemble, the College of Wooster Chorus and the University of Akron Concert Choir, in an evening of familiar holiday music. You will be invited to sing along — with the Cleveland Orchestra! There will be a “surprise visitor.” Gee, I wonder who that would be. Hint: it won’t be the ghost of George Szell.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Preview: "The orchestra does 'It's a Wonderful Life' and 8 more classical music events to hit this week"
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Dmitri Tiomkin's score for ‘It's a Wonderful Life’ on December 8 and 9 at Severance Hall.
Cleveland Scene has published a brief preview of Brett Mitchell's performances with The Cleveland Orchestra this weekend:
Last week, The Cleveland Orchestra gave you George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker in Playhouse Square. This week, the ensemble returns to Severance Hall to crank up more Christmas activities: two screenings of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life on Thursday and Friday, December 8 and 9 at 7:30 pm, and ten Christmas Concerts beginning on Saturday afternoon, December 10 and running through Sunday evening, December 18 will all be led by the busy associate conductor Brett Mitchell. The Orchestra’s Youth Chorus joins in for the movies, and all the Severance Hall choruses, plus guests, will raise their voices for the holiday fare. Tickets can be ordered online.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Preview: "Renée Fleming To Help Kick Off Colorado Symphony's Next Season"
Soprano Renée Fleming will join Brett Mitchell in his first concert as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in September 2017. (Photo by Timothy White)
Colorado Public Radio has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's first concert as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony, featuring special guest artist Renée Fleming:
One of the world's best-known opera singers will help the Colorado Symphony kick off its next season.
Soprano Renee Fleming—who has appeared on countless opera stages, won Grammy awards and performed at the Super Bowl—will sing at Boettcher Concert Hall on Sept. 9, 2017, the orchestra announced recently.
The performance will also celebrate conductor Brett Mitchell's first concert as music director of the Colorado Symphony. (He's serving as music director designate this season, and spoke with CPR Classical in September about his new job.)
Details on what Fleming will sing in Denver, as well as Colorado Symphony's full 2017-18 season schedule, will be announced later.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Audio: Brett Mitchell discusses "The Nutcracker," "It's a Wonderful Life," and The Cleveland Orchestra's annual holiday festival
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and Pennsylvania Ballet in George Balanchine's production of ‘The Nutcracker’ at the State Theatre in downtown Cleveland from Nov. 30 through Dec. 4. (Photo by Alexander Iziliaev)
Brett Mitchell recently spoke with WCLV Classical 104.9's Bill O'Connell about his upcoming performances with The Cleveland Orchestra of The Nutcracker (presented with the Pennsylvania Ballet), It's a Wonderful Life, and its annual holiday festival. To hear these interviews, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra, PA Ballet savoring fresh spin with Balanchine's 'The Nutcracker'"
On both sides of the Cleveland Orchestra-Pennsylvania Ballet production of Balanchine's "The Nutcracker" coming to Playhouse Square this week, performers claim to be reveling in a holiday classic they say remains fresh. (Photo by Alexander Iziliaev)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a preview of The Cleveland Orchestra and Pennsylvania Ballet's joint production of The Nutcracker, which will be conducted by Brett Mitchell:
If the public enjoys the show half much as the artists creating it are enjoying the process, Pennsylvania Ballet's upcoming presentation of Balanchine's "The Nutcracker" with the Cleveland Orchestra will be sitting pretty.
No sense here of "The Nutcracker" as a holiday chore. On both sides of the production, on stage and in the pit, performers say they're reveling in a holiday classic that remains fresh....
Brett Mitchell, associate conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and leader of the performances this week at Playhouse Square, also is having a mighty fine time, albeit for a different reason.
Tchaikovsky's ballet for Mitchell is proving a kind of treasure trove, a score full of musical riches beyond its popular excerpts.
"It's been a revelation," said Mitchell of his first exposure to the complete ballet. "There's a ton of music that only gets played every two or three years." ...
The Cleveland Orchestra may, in his words, be "the most flexible, sensitive orchestra on the planet," able to respond automatically to whatever nuanced request he might make, but "The Nutcracker" still contains a great deal of material with which the musicians aren't intimately familiar.
What's more, the score is different from what it might be otherwise. In addition to a main character named Marie (not Clara), a large cast of children, and an earlier appearance of the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," Balanchine's version of "The Nutcracker" contains an insert from Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty."
Then there's Mitchell himself. Not only is he new to conducting the complete "The Nutcracker." He's new to conducting ballet, period.
Which isn't to say he's inexperienced. Far from it. On top of time spent with Pennsylvania Ballet, learning "The Nutcracker" from the dancer's perspective, Mitchell cites as training his several years in Cleveland, conducting orchestra performances with film. (He also jokingly points to a third-grade stint as the Mouse King.) The difference now is that dancers and musicians can and do interact in real time.
"To learn how dependent the stage and pit are on each other, that's what's been the most interesting," Mitchell said, adding that after spending time with the ballet in rehearsal. "I know pretty well what they're looking for."
The same could be said of Pennsylvania Ballet and its audience. Aware that crowds for "The Nutcracker" are eager for a spectacle as well as great dancing and music, the company, Mitchell said, has brought to Playhouse Square a production every bit as lavish as Cleveland has come to demand.
"When you see it," Mitchell said, "you're going to say, 'That right there, that's exactly what it should look like.' It's exactly what you would expect."
To read the complete article, please click here.